Category: Hong Kong

Hong Kong has been on my list of cities to explore for many years. Inspired by Trey Radcliff’s photograph, seen on his blog over 10 years ago. I’ve wanted to go to Hong Kong and get my own take on this cityscape photograph. I’d planned to visit the city on my backpacking trip through South East Asia in 2012, but it never happened. So last year I spent a couple of nights exploring this amazing city and planning this photograph. Taken from the top of the Peak Tower. I had scoped out of the location in the day. Taking the iconic Peak Tram early one morning. When it came to it, the tram wait times were over two hours. I had given myself plenty of time before sunset. So I purchased a bottle of cold water and walked up from Hong Kong Park to the peak. In the 30°C heat it took me about an hour. It was well worth the effort as this is by far my favourite photograph of 2017.

Cityscapes at night are one of my preferred subjects to photograph. Some of my favourite landscapes combine interesting foregrounds and backgrounds. The Lion’s Pavilion at the top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong is perfect for this. As you can see it does get very crowded with tourists, especially at night. It’s quite small and on two or three levels. Being free there’s no restriction on coming and going. Two advantages over the far more popular Peak Tower. Whilst Peak Tower is 8 floors higher so the view is a little more spectacular, this view is well worth seeing. It’s amazing how many people seems to ignore or miss Lion’s Pavilion. It’s only about 50 metres flat walk from the tower and tram stop.

The best view of central Hong Kong’s skyline is from Kowloon. This photograph was from Kowloon Public Pier. This was on my last afternoon in the city before heading home that night. The sun was shinning and so I took the iconic star ferry across the harbour. The tallest building in this photograph is the International Finance Centre, Tower 2. It’s 415 metres tall with 88 floors. Behind the skyscrapers is Victoria Peak. The highest mountain in Hong Kong with the best views of the whole city.

In the heart of Causeway Bay is Victoria Park. It was a welcome relief from the crowds and huge buildings of Hong Kong’s central shopping district. One of the first things I came across was a large pool for remote-controlled model boats. The sun was in the right place when I spotted this model tug boat. Looking around I saw the operator sitting in the shade with a friend. I sat on the opposite side of the pond from them. Zoomed in the camera and waited for the little boat to be in the right place for this photograph.